Report: Prov. metro on low end of well-being rankings

THE PROVIDENCE-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan area ranked 130th in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index released Tuesday that ranks the well-being of 189 U.S. communities. / COURTESY GALLUP-HEALTHWAYS
THE PROVIDENCE-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan area ranked 130th in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index released Tuesday that ranks the well-being of 189 U.S. communities. / COURTESY GALLUP-HEALTHWAYS

PROVIDENCE – The Providence-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan area ranked 130th in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index released Tuesday that measures the well-being of 189 U.S. communities.

The report analyzes how well-being varies by community, as well as who leads and lags across the five elements of well-being – purpose, social, financial, community and physical.
“The data and insights from this report can be used as a call to action for communities around the country, leveraging it to benchmark and identify opportunities for well-being improvement,” Gallup states in the report.
The Providence metro was in the lowest fifth quintile for community, and next-to-lowest quintile in the purpose, social and financial categories. It performed better in the physical category, moving up to the third-highest quintile.
The Naples, Fla., metro topped the well-being list for the second year in a row. In 2016, Naples had the country’s highest percentage of residents thriving in community well-being, as well as the highest rates of healthy eating, lowest rates of daily stress and lowest lifetime diagnoses of depression, according to Gallup.
The Barnstable, Mass., metro had the second-highest well-being in the nation, and Santa Cruz, Calif., the third highest.
Residents of Fort Smith, Ark.; Hickory, N.C.; and Huntington, W.V., reported the lowest levels of well-being.
In New England, the Worcester, Mass.-Conn., metro, ranked the lowest, coming in at 173rd.

Gallup said that the continued national increase in prevalence of chronic diseases such as obesity (28.4 percent), diabetes (11.6 percent) and depression (17.8 percent) remain a concern for communities, especially those with low levels of well-being.

Gallup said its data is based on a subset of 354,473 telephone interviews with U.S. adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia conducted from Jan. 2, 2015, to Dec. 30, 2016. Gallup conducts 500 telephone interviews daily, resulting in a sample that it said projects to an estimated 95 percent of all U.S. adults.

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